Editorial

Bridges to Belonging

Samyuktha Shankar, University of Warwick

As the new editor of Reinvention an International Journal of Undergraduate Research, I am pleased to introduce the second issue of the year, volume 19 issue 2, a testament to the strength and vibrancy of undergraduate research. This issue brings together research papers and critical reflections spanning the sciences, social sciences and humanities. We are also delighted to present the inaugural Liberal Arts Northern Network Special Section containing a wonderful collection of international research papers and reflections from Liberal Arts.

The theme of this issue, Bridges to Belonging reflects on the topics of identity and what it means to belong within a space. While the papers diverge in discipline and method, each reveals something about identity: how it is narrated, recognised, constrained, or denied. Together, the papers ask what it takes to build a bridge from the margins to a place of belonging. This edition brings together work across international relations, media studies, nutritional science and reflective practice, while its liberal arts collection ranges from medieval mysticism to computational modelling. Each paper approaches identity from its own angle, and together they show how many ways there are to understand who we are and where we belong.

In Navigating the Global Order through Trade and Discourse: EU’s Global Gateway and China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Africa, readers are invited to consider how the European Union narrates its own identity as a development partner. This paper reminds us that the language of partnership can quietly decide who belongs inside the circle and who is left outside it.

Questions of identity, this time in a national sense, also sit at the heart of Does the Arab Spring Serve as a Critical Juncture in the Attention and the Treatment of the Kurdish Question in the Mainstream Media in the UK and France? The Role of the Emergence of ISIS. The paper follows British and French newspapers across a decade, tracing how their attention to the Kurdish Question changed after the Arab Spring. In doing so, it asks who gets seen, and on whose terms, when a stateless people enters the headlines.

From a scientific perspective, An Investigation into the Effectiveness of Kefir in Managing Stress and Anxiety in College Students: A Randomised Controlled Trial with Assessment of Nutritional Status turns to the wellbeing of students. It tests whether dietary intervention can ease the stress and anxiety so common in student life. The paper’s contribution to wellbeing and health through natural interventions is a valuable contribution to an emerging field.

In addition, Sehar Jaggi an assistant editor at Reinvention, offers a critical reflection: Listening to Practitioners: A Critical Reflection on AAC Use in Supporting Children and Young Adults with Autism. Drawing on interviews with practitioners at the Autism Centre for Excellence in New Delhi, Sehar reflects on communication as a foundation of participation and belonging.

For the first time, this issue also includes a special section dedicated to the liberal arts and celebrating the UK’s Liberal Arts Northern Network (LANN). The section brings together a range of interdisciplinary research papers and reflections introduced by founding member of the LANN and publishing lead Dr Caroline Starkey, Director of Student Education, School of Philosophy, Religion, and History of Science, University of Leeds. Associate Professor Will Rupp, Head of Liberal Arts at the University of Warwick discusses how interdisciplinary thinking prepares students for the future.

The collection begins with Intersectional Inequalities Within the UK’s Paid Care Sector: An Analysis into the Lived Experiences of South Asian Domiciliary Workers on Visa Sponsorships, which draws on interviews with migrant carers to show how visa sponsorship and employer practices produce layered inequalities of gender and ethnicity. Similarly, belonging becomes literal in Introducing Economic Disparity and Housing Immobility to Schelling’s Dynamic Model of Segregation, which adds income and property prices to Schelling’s classic model and finds that economic disparity can leave residents “trapped”, unable to move to where they would choose to belong.

To What Extent Does the Layout of a Departmental Store Affect Consumer Decision Fatigue?, compares free-form, grid and racetrack layouts to show how the design of a space shapes the people moving through it. Sustainability and Regeneration in Food Systems: A Comparative Case-Study Analysis of Fungal Meat and Microalgae turns to our relationship with the environment, comparing Quorn mycoprotein and spirulina to argue for food systems that give back to the ecosystems they depend on.

An Enquiry into the Mystical Experiences of Julian of Norwich and Epistemic Injustice in Relation to Illness asks whose testimony we choose to believe, arguing that dismissing Julian’s revelations because she was ill denies her a place among those whose experiences count as knowledge. Finally, the issue concludes with Rethinking Racial Inequality in Artificial Intelligence: A Critical Reflection through Cybernetics uses predictive policing to show how institutional decisions produce the very data later used to justify them, and asks whether the communities encoded in these systems have any power to challenge them.

Together these papers show how much research can reveal about the ways we understand ourselves and one another. In each paper, the authors consider identity in different forms and ask how it may be better recognised. Across different subjects, they share a curiosity about people and the spaces they move through, and a hope of making those spaces fairer and more welcoming. It is fitting that this work comes from undergraduates, who are themselves finding their place in the academic community, and Reinvention is proud to be one of the bridges that helps them get there.

Lastly, I would like to thank all the authors, reviewers, editorial board and readers whose generosity and effort make each issue possible. We hope you find something in these pages that speaks to your own sense of where you belong.